Champs-Elysées Changes
Suits

Although cold today, people were sitting out
on
terraces at Trocadéro.

Edith Piaf Chosen 'Singer of the
Century'

Paris:- Sunday, 19. December 1999:- Everybody has
been complaining to me about the state of the Christmas
decor of the Champs-Elysées. This is like yelling at
your TV set about the weather report.

It was another one of 'great events in the whole history
of mankind' that I missed on account of watching the wrong
channel, or having forgotten to turn the thing on in the
first place.

The story apparently revolves around the gauzy sacks
enshrouding the trees. These were supposed to be different
pastel colors when lit from inside. One day when I was on
the Champs they actually were different pastel colors when
lit by sunlight.

This must have been before the leaves fell off, they got
hit by a bit of a wind storm and before the
pollution got to them. Present
and future members at the Café Metropole Club said,
"Your Champs-Elysées is 'Ugh!'"

Lonely mummy
seen from bus window on the Pont Saint-Michel today.

Last week, the street's decoration committee - lot's of
streets in Paris have these - decided to rip the junk down.
According to Roland Pozzo Di Borgo, the committee ran a
test for a month and it worked fine.

Projections of advertising logos was what was supposed
to happen to the trees. Now, after new illuminations are
installed, these projections may be directed at the
sidewalks, where you can walk all over them.

More
People and Things of the Century

Le Parisien and the CSA polling outfit are finding more
number ones, and some of the findings are unexpected - if
those polled were telling the truth.

Edith Piaf being selected by an absolute majority as the
'singer of the century' comes as no great surprise because
she might win this recognition in countries other than
France as well.

Céline Dion got only half as much support as
Edith Piaf, while getting less than twice as much as Tina
Turner - who got two points more than Ella Fitzgerald - who
most likely would have come in at one or two if only music
fanciers had been polled.

Actually these polls show some fundamental French ideas,
which expose some generalities about them as myths.

They gave a big majority, when asked to choose the
'French monument of the century,' to the Channel Tunnel. The
great, huge, wonderful Stade de France came in a distant
second; and only because it was the site of a recent
super-grand French feat.

Santa loads up on small
passengers in front of the BHV last week.

The tunnel, built by a consortium, does link France and
Britain, but I was unaware that it would be considered as a
'French' monument. The French think otherwise, possibly
because so many Britons now buy their wine and cheese in
Calais instead of in Devon.

It would be interesting to know if a majority of the
British would vote for the Chunnel, as they call it.

As long as we are on 'monuments,' I would have voted for
the Airbus - even if is built by a consortium too. The
Ariane rocket would get my second place vote.

'Suit'
of the Century

For this personality, the French who were polled gave
two men equal percentages; Marcel Dassault and Bill Gates.
André Citroën was close behind in third place,
for his 'Traction Avant.'

Citing André Citroën is fairly unusual
because he died in 1934 and thereby missed
the other 76 years of this century. But he is remembered
for innovation even today - which seems to present a stark
contrast with Bill Gates.

One of the two carrousels
in from of Paris' Hôtel de Ville today. Skaters
filled the nearby free ice rink.

Of course the French are fond of their Minitel too, so
this probably explains Mr. Gates' popularity. Perhaps
surprisingly, nobody seems to want to be credited with
inventing the Minitel - even if its financial model will -
if it hasn't already - outstrip that of Mr. Gates'
firm.

Two other foreign 'suits' were chosen by the French to
be in the top ten. They were Giovanni Agnelli of Fiat fame,
who was outvoted by Aristotle Onassis, of plain
fame.

Strike Warning

Normally I do not post 'strike warnings' because most of
the time there is no warning of any kind. When managers are
having difficult times with their employees, they never
bother to tell the public that they are going to let a
situation deteriorate to the point of zero.

However, employees
often know a strike will hurt them so they tend to 'go
public' as a way of putting pressure on employers to be a
little more reasonable.

After two days on non-stop
rain, everybody came out today and some brought their
balloons.

This is apparently the case at the moment at
Disneyland-Paris. Six unions have jointly suggested they
will be walking out soon if Disney management keeps
dragging its feet on the 35-hour work week issues.

Disney would like to get serious after the holiday
season and the unions would like to get serious before
Disney can count the receipts from the holiday
season.

French Web Life This Week

Anyone For Food?

All you wanted to know about what people in Timbuktu eat
for Christmas you can find out by hitting the 'Tastes'
site, which also features the recipes too - helpful unless
you live in the US and need certain ingredients from
France.

Anyone For Brain Food?

Editions Atlas, which is a big encyclopedia publisher
got tired of selling 10-franc versions on CD-ROMs for 700
francs, and had put an 11,000-article encyclopedia
online.

Consulting it is free after a registration procedure.
Searches can be done by keywords, or there are 13 overall
themes to chose from. 'Webencyclo' is something you
should bookmark if you have to look things up, and don't
mind a few banner ads too much.

What IS In a
Name?

If your name is Noël and you want to have email
addressed to you at noel@noel.net, you can do this
by paying the modest sum of five francs a month to Noël Net. If your name
happens to be Santa Claus, you need not bother doing this,
because you've got too many emails to answer
already.

Where Is Christmas, Anyway?

The newspaper Le Progrès de Lyon has put together
a Web
site for children that has everything about Christmas
traditions, from Iceland to Italy. Christmas, like
Halloween, has its various origins - such as 13 Santa
Claus's - or is it Pères Noël, who are almost
as famous as the Smith Brothers.

What do other
people eat for Christmas? At one time most people were
so busy eating their Christmas fare that the question would
not have arisen. Now, everybody eats so fast that they have
time to wonder about what other people eat - except the
French, of course, who still eat a lot and slowly enough to
enjoy every morsel.

Shorty: - All you wanted to know about French beef is answered by
a Web site that wants to sell you some. At least, this is
what I gather from their ad in Le Parisien.

Some of the suggestions for these Web site references
have been supplied by 'Internet Actu.'